Reporter: “MEL KING! You just won the 16” performance Grand Prix with your three legged Poodle, MiniMe! Now what are you going to do?

Mel: “Just a minute: I’ll ask Helen what I am going to do.”

Mel looks at Helen but says nothing. After more than 33 years together, she knows the look. It is the Universal “I have no say in what we do or where we do it” look that so many men who are held down by bossy women have. It is very sad. Helen tries to not be bossy but, just as in the frog and the scorpion fable, it is her nature.

Helen: “WE’RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!”

So, that is exactly what they did.

We stayed an extra night at the trial site in Tampa so we could work the dogs in the morning.

It was freezing cold at the trial. They said it was in the LOW 40s but the wind, that was blowing HARD, made it feel like 30! We were freezing off our collective asses!

The Girlz did well at the trial and got some nice Qs. Mel picked up another double Q with Josephine so she is now tied with MeMe in the race for MACHs. Josephine needs three double Qs for MACH 3 and MeMe needs only three for MACH (that would make her, at three years old, the youngest standard Poodle to ever get a MACH). MeMe only got her excellent standard title last May so it has only been 8 months since she started accumulating QQS! MeMe has nearly 1,000 points to date and she runs in the 20” class with all the border collies so she rarely if ever gets a multiplier to boost those points. They were all received the hard way. Very exciting stuff for us!

Charisse and I lag behind with only 8 QQs and about 450 points. She has been in excellent standard since last March. Isabella has all her QQs for MACH 2 but the points are very slow coming. She had nearly 400 towards MACH 2 with 350 to go, it doesn’t look great that she will ever get it but we will keep plugging along as long as she is having fun.

After training the youngsters at the training facility where the trial was in Tampa, we stowed the breakilies and headed out for Disneyworld in Orlando. Once again, our three GPS machines failed us. Soon we found ourselves on that same road where we had to turn off to make a U-turn before we ended up on the hundred million mile long bridge across the Gulf. This time we made a right instead of a left and somehow, Mel made a U-y in the middle of the street! How he managed to turn the Global Warmer with the Extortion in tow in that small space is beyond me but somehow he managed.

Once again headed in the right direction, we relaxed and settled in to take in the scenery. The wind continued to blow so strongly that the GW, even at more than 64,000 pounds, drifted like a small Turnabout in the wind.

 The GPSs once again tried to get us lost but we printed out the directions from the Disney site and eventually found our way into the Disney Wilderness Campsites RV Park. They put us in the doggie section about a quarter of a mile from the dog park. You should have seen the looks we got as we led the 6 Horrible Hooligans down the road. Of course everyone wanted to know what kind of dogs the Poodles were and nobody ever believes they are really STANDARD Poodles because they are so small. I explain that a standard only has to be over 15” and then tell them we have three standards and one substandard and that they range in size from the 19;5” substandard MiniMe, to the 23. 25” Josephine. People also remark at how attentive all the girlz are except Isabella who is always off looking for some critter to maim of kill since small dogs are off limits. It doesn’t matter what other dogs are in the park, the Girlz only are interested in playing with us (except Isabella who is you-know-where doing you-know-what to God-knows-what. We throw the ball until their tongues are curling, then we go. Most people at the dog parks have trouble getting their dogs to leave but we tell our Girlz it is time to go and they all follow us like little soldiers with smiles to the gate where we leash them one at a time and off we go while the many folks at the park watch in disbelief that a couple would have so many dogs and live in a motorhome.

We have decided that prey has a direct correlation with slackerdom. This RV park is infested with squirrels and ducks. Isabella, Millie and MeMe go crazy looking for the critters. The other three couldn’t care less about them. Isabella has the most prey drive of the three and is the biggest slacker in agility. Millie is second slacker and second to Isabella in her prey drive. Go figure! A feral dog with less prey drive (although very strong) than a POODLE! MiniMe barks and strains at the leash for the squirrels and she has been known to put on the breaks in mid run to smell dead toads or other delectable aromas. There is one park where I can’t even show Isabella because of the ground squirrels (as rhymed in Uncle Jef’s MACH poem for Isabella).

The girlz were sufficiently tired to sleep while we went to Disneyworld. Girlz fed and pottied once more, we walked the half mile or so to the dock and rode the boat from the campground over the Disneyworld.

We wanted to see the plaques we make for Disneyworld. They are placed on the garbage cans. We make Fantasyland, Main Street, Tomorrowland and Liberty Square. It was fun to see these plaques made by our own hands now bolted safely from thieves on each garbage can in their respective area of the theme park.  

So far we have taken dogs to the dog park, are about to feed them and head off for Epcot Center.

The break from agility has been very nice indeed!

Helen, The Girlz and That Grumpy Old Bald Guy Who Drives The Global Warmer

www.jility.com